Generally there isn’t much value to a second clerkship at the federal COA level, especially after you’ve already done two clerkships. Three clerkships (unless the third is SCOTUS, obviously) may send a signal to firms that you’re not serious about private practice. My judge has a near-categorical policy of not hiring someone who already has a clerkship on another circuit unless it’s the DC Circuit, since the caseload there is quite different from anything else.Anonymous User wrote:HYS student here with an EDNY and 2nd Circuit clerkship lined up with reputable judges 2 and 3 years after graduation, respectively. I withdrew all of my circuit court applications after securing my circuit court clerkship, but I realized that I forgot to withdraw a few that I sent via paper. One of those judges contacted me recently asking if I'm still interested in clerking for them immediately after graduation (I'll be working in big law immediately after I graduate). The judge sits on a non-2/9/DC circuit.
Is there any reason for me to consider this circuit court clerkship? I want to end up in private practice on the east coast and have no ties/interest in the circuit that the judge sits in.
Reasons you might want to take the third clerkship despite all this: you want to practice in the city/circuit in which this judge sits, the judge is a feeder for SCOTUS, the judge has strong ties to a field you want to enter (e.g. academia, DOJ) that neither of your other two judges can offer, or a third year of clerking would make more sense from a family/personal perspective than a year in biglaw. If none of those apply I would pass.